COURTHOUSE — The father of a victim who suffered a paralyzing gunshot wound after a bar fight in December 2011 testified Tuesday morning that what triggered the argument was the defendant saying to him, “if I had the opportunity, I would stick a knife in his heart.”

Tuesday morning marked the beginning of witness testimony in a first-degree attempted murder trial in Montgomery County Court.

Phillip Mullin, 26, is accused of putting a man permanently in a wheelchair after a gunshot blast to the victim’s chest outside the Black Horse Tavern in East Norriton left him paralyzed from the waist down.

Mullin is charged with attempted first-degree murder, aggravated assault, weapons offense and related charges in what is expected to be a five-day jury trial before Judge Carolyn Carluccio.

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Dressed in a black suit, red button-down shirt and black tie, Mullin sat quietly in court Tuesday as he listened to Dennis McGonagle describe the events that led up to the near-fatal shooting of his son, Sean McGonagle, on Dec. 23, 2011.

“Phil was basically at the pool table area and then he approached my son and me,” said McGonagle, taking the stand as a witness for the prosecution.

“He talked to me directly, saying something like, I was crazy, my son was crazy and his (expletive) girlfriend was crazy too, and we all should see a psychiatrist. I was taken aback by this.”

McGonagle said he told Mullin to leave them alone, as they were only out to enjoy themselves. That’s when Mullin allegedly threatened McGonagle with the knife comment.

“I got a little bit irate,” said McGonagle.

Described by witnesses in court Tuesday as a bar having a similar atmosphere as the old Boston favorite, Cheers, most all the regulars knew each other from frequenting the Black Horse Tavern.

“It’s a local working man’s bar, a shot and a beer kind of a place,” said Melinda Borgnis, a commonwealth witness who was bartending the night of the shooting.

Borgnis said she was familiar with both the defendant and the victim from frequenting the Black Horse Tavern, though that evening she knew something was off. McGonagle said he and his son were sitting at the bar when Mullin approached them, at first, starting out teasing about a game of billiards, but an altercation quickly grew from there.

Borgnis said the disturbance prompted her to cut off all three of them from drinking any more alcohol, and that’s when Mullin then stormed out of the bar without paying his tab. He reemerged about 20 minutes later.

Another frequent bar patron testified for prosecutors that as he walked into the Black Horse Tavern that night, a “shoving match” was already afoot between the younger McGonagle and Mullin.

“The cook was going around the bar to break it up,” said Ethan Roccia, 31, of East Norriton.

“I saw Phil leave and then Dennis ... I saw Sean lying against a car, unconscious and bleeding.”

In his opening statements to the jury, defense attorney James P. Lyons asked the group to be open-minded when hearing the evidence in this case.

“This is a kid, at three years old, suffered a very serious head injury, which changed his life,” said Lyons.

During the course of the investigation, detectives located a Taser cartridge, with barbs attached, in the bar’s parking lot. They also found a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun outside Mullin’s Hillcrest Avenue home, just a tenth of a mile from the bar. Ammunition was also found inside his home.